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AND 08 _ Magazine of Architecture, Cities and Architects _ Edinburgh AND Modernity
Florence and Edinburgh are both exceptional manifestations of the European Stone City, one in the north, the other in the south, one on the periphery, the other at the centre. Edinburgh has always looked to the south for cultural nourishment, its sobriquet as Athens of the North speaks of the irresistible pull of the south. We however have a natural inclination towards the north. Edinburgh is mesmerised and afflicted by its own image. Our approach to architecture is inevitably a result of this reading of Edinburgh. The weight of its history and its protected appearance is stifling. We try to view the city obliquely through the mirror of a northern modernism. We continue to be interested in the simple resolution and appropriateness of an architectural proposal. Our buildings respond to the thin, low northern light, often soft and filtered through mist. This raking light reveals tiny changes in plane and texture in contrast to the full passionate sun of the south, which needs deep modelling to satisfy it. We search for reticence and stillness, lightness and clarity. We embrace melancholy and reflection. We acknowledge and value our peripheral location our position at the edge, in the shadows. Our ambition is to realise buildings that are grounded in their location yet through a lightness of touch escape the paralysing effect of a culturally conservative and depressed society. A poet friend of the practice, Thomas A Clark, wrote that 'reticence is a kind of shade' in many ways the inescapable attraction of Edinburgh's historic image allows work to go on in the shadows, away from the gaze of the centre. At some point however either the light changes and those in the shadows are exposed or they themselves decide to emerge from the shadows of the past and reveal themselves. We sense that it is time to expand our field of influence.
Neil Gillespie
ISSN 1723 9990 _ copyright AND 2008
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